Luis von Ahn looks like a tech-guru who has made millions – casually-dressed, subtle and polite.
I meet the inventor and CEO of the world’s largest language app, Duolingo, the day before the launch of the app’s first African language, Swahili.
For Von Ahn, the road to introducing Swahili to the 150 million users of his educational language app has been long, and has taken him around the world since leaving his homeland Guatemala.
A son of two medical doctors, graduating from Guatemala City’s international school, Von Ahn had to look outside the Central American country to find education – a university that offered math degrees – perhaps inspiring him to create a universal educational tool later in life.
During the first year of his PhD studies at the prestigious Duke University in the United States, a particular talk would influence and shape his life.
“The chief scientist of Yahoo came to give a talk about 10 things they needed solutions for. They struggled with people creating Yahoo email accounts to send spam. That led me to do a test recognizing humans: CAPTCHA. We were online within six months,” says Von Ahn.
This stroke of genius did not make Von Ahn a dime, he says.
“I don´t regret it, because everyone started using it; all kinds of people started approaching me.”
As tech giants lined up to court the CAPTCHA inventor, then 29-year-old Von Ahn was thinking about his next step.
“Two hundred million CAPTCHAs were typed a day, it takes about 10 seconds, that’s 500,000 hours of typing every day, how could I use that?” he asks, revealing how he turned the thousands of hours into an efficient digitalization tool.
Digitalizing books were trending, but no one had cracked the code on how to efficiently publish them yet.
“Google was trying to do this,” says Von Ahn.
“A computer scans a page that needs deciphering, which computers could not do at that time.”
Pictures of words from books are put online as CAPTCHAs, humans then decipher it, and the computer then saves it.
“Today, we call this crowdsourcing,” Von Ahn says, smiling.
“It worked. We were probably doing a year of the New York Times in a week. Then Google bought it, and today CAPTCHA digitalizes 100 million words a day, which is two million books a year,” says Von Ahn, explaining how, if you have filled in a CAPTCHA since 2007, you are probably among the billion people who have helped.
The sale of the CAPTCHA business has never been disclosed, but Von Ahn admits that it did make him millions. After that adventure, 37-year-old Von Ahn wanted to focus on education.
“I wanted to work on something passion-driven, and we decided on languages because there are 1.2 billion people learning languages, and language has impact: learn English, and you can immediately make more money.”
Eyeing a massive hole in the market, Von Ahn threw himself into making Duolingo.
Alongside Swiss PhD student Severin Hacker (that is his real name), Von Ahn started creating a website.
“That’s what people did,” he says.
The app market was only just launching in 2011, but that was all about to change.
“We raised $3 million of funding and launched in 2012. A few months later we launched apps, and now there are more than 150 million using it,” Von Ahn says proudly.
The main income generator is the app’s online language tests, an alternative to the traditional TOEFL tests that measure your ability to use and understand English.
“The TOEFL tests are expensive, slow and have to be done manually at centers. This is much cheaper,” says Von Ahn, offering tests at $50, whereas a TOEFL is about $250.
“We have already got about 30 universities on board,” he says.
Targeting Africa seems like a good idea, as the number of smartphone connections has almost doubled since 2014, and the cost of buying a smartphone has dropped by more than 25% since 2012. According to reports, more than 500 million on the continent currently subscribe to mobile services, with mobile operators expecting numbers to reach 725 million in 2020.
“The lack of smartphones is the main challenge, but everyone is trying to grow here, like Facebook, so that will change,” says Von Ahn.
Founder of numerous African tech start-ups, Ndubuisi Ekekwe, has stayed clear of any app-based business.
“Most smartphones sold in Africa fail to download and install apps from apps stores,” he says, explaining how in Africa, phones are used for a longer period of time before being replaced, making the phones unable to handle many apps.
“Americans can upgrade their phones annually and that is in line with most app upgrades. But in Africa, people use their phones for more than three years,” says Ekekwe. “We do not see a roadmap for how that can be closed, and that is why I do not see a market for apps in Africa for a long time.”
Von Ahn is not too worried though.
“I recognize that in six years apps might not even exist, but right now I think we’re okay,” he says, convinced of his, and Duolingo’s, ability to adapt.
The app’s current mission is to introduce Swahili to its 150 million users. Judging by the waiting list of 45,000 users, he is probably right.

The Tech Wizard Who Wants The World To Learn Swahili

Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”
This sentiment might not be far off for 2010 Tutu Fellow, Zimbabwe-born Jacqueline Chimhanzi.
She did her PhD in Strategic Marketing at the Cardiff Business School in the United Kingdom, and now, added on her work portfolio, Chimhanzi has recently been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the African Leadership Institute (AFLI), after being on the institute’s board of directors for six years.
“Every day feels like I am waking up to my calling,” says Chimhanzi, describing what it’s been like settling in her job.
Formerly the Senior Strategist at Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), Chimhanzi was recognized by FORBES as one of the 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa, who are shaping the narrative for the continent’s growth, in 2012.
It was when she was part of the Tutu Fellowship Program that her career started to focus more on Africa and she decided to play a role in making the continent a better place.
“The program helps you notice the difference you can make,” she says.
Making a difference became her mandate wherever she worked after the fellowship. The budding photographer worked as Lead: Africa Desk at Deloitte South Africa.
“I raised my hand with the Africa Desk venture and part of [any] career progression, especially for women, is to raise your hand in any given opportunity,” she says.
Part of her vision is to see the infrastructure gap on the continent closed and Africans investing in Africa, especially in women, who she says benefit the least when it comes to business and funding opportunities.
To see this materialize, Chimhanzi, with the support of Graça Machel, founded New Faces New Voices in 2010. It is a pan-African platform which focuses on expanding the role and influence of women in the financial sector.
Chimhanzi says some of the challenges unsettling investors are policies in various African countries and the slow pace of implementing concepts.
“We need an app that connects funders and projects because there is an information asymmetry in the market gap in our continent. Another challenge in the rest of the continent is that capital markets are very shallow, most banks lend in the short-term and interest rates are very high,” she says.
However, it is not all doom and gloom. Chimhanzi is optimistic about young Africans making their mark on the continent. She says leaders need to “draw on the talents and experiences from the youth in order to co-create solutions”.
Chimhanzi also wishes to see Africa transform into the self-sustainable continent she believes it can be.
With someone like Chimhanzi steering the wheel, Africa has a bright future.

Jack-023

A New Voice  For A New Africa

In a case of David against Goliath, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim beat her male opponent by a landslide to become the first female president of Mauritius, a small island off the coast of Africa that has a population of just over 1.2 million. No one expected her to win.
Gurib-Fakim, who joined the presidential office on June 5, relishes shuttering glass ceilings. In Africa, there aren’t many women at the helm of countries.
“When the people voted, they voted for a package, they knew that they would have a lady president and yet they voted massively for a party that has not made any provision for constitutional change,” says Gurib-Fakim.
Born into a Muslim Indian family, Gurib-Fakim, 56, is also a former bio-scientist and the Vice Chairman of the Planet Earth Institute, an international NGO and charity that builds a path for the scientific independence of Africa.
Gurib-Fakim published more than 28 scientific books that have been devoured around the world by students and researchers. She graduated with a bachelor of science in chemistry from the University of Surrey in 1983. She then obtained her PhD in organic chemistry at Exeter University in Britain.
“I became interested in sciences at a very young age because I had good motivated teachers who infected me with the virus of science. I went into sciences following my heart because passion was there.”
Back at home, she worked at the University of Mauritius before becoming the Managing Director at CEPHYR, a centre for phytotherapy research that focuses on using plants in cosmetics, nutrition and therapy.
“When I went back to Mauritius, I realized that the work I was doing in synthetic chemistry, the infrastructure wasn’t there and yet in the academic world you either publish or perish. I chose to publish. To publish novel things you have to have novel avenues,” she says.
This is when she started to probe into the biodiversity of Mauritius. The Indian Ocean island nation is known as a global biodiversity hotspot – it is home to about 300 plant species that can only be found on the island, which are under threat as a result of human activity and climate change.
Gurib-Fakim says she wants to drive science and technology in Africa.
“We believe a scientifically independent Africa is one with science, technology and innovation fully embedded in governmental policies and priorities, delivered by properly resourced and empowered educational institutions. A scientifically independent Africa will have both the ability to train and keep brilliant scientists on the continent, and create an inspiring new generation of academic leaders. Ultimately, we believe scientific independence means that African problems can be solved by African-led solutions,” it says on the Planet Earth Institute website.
Gurib-Fakim is also an entrepreneur.
“I didn’t stay in the academic world because my second life was that of an entrepreneur. I translated that research work on herbal medicine into a business so I can safely say I am now living my third life.”
In Mauritius many girls couldn’t go to school. After 1976, this changed and yet transformation is still the biggest problem.
“Coming back to tertiary education this is again an area where we find many women coming to do studies at tertiary level but still find the gap and where we find the downside of this, is for them to get jobs, for them to be leaders in their respective fields because society in Mauritius remains fairly conservative,” she says.
According to Gurib-Fakim, science is still dominated by males in many parts of the world.
As African countries aspire for economic growth and socio-economic transformation, Gurib-Fakim says: “It is becoming clear that any innovation or ambition to become a knowledge economy has to be driven by talented African scientists and with the knowledge that innovation is not instructed!”
She has a strong passion for protecting nature, fostering research and creating a better environment for women scientists.
This year Gurib-Fakim is nominated for FORBES AFRICA’s Person of The Year in recognition of her drive to protect her nation’s environment. She was listed by FORBES in June as being the 96th most powerful woman in 2016.
Her motto is: “Follow your heart, do what you enjoy best and you won’t have to work a day in your life.”

Step Forward The President With A Purpose

He pulled up to the entrance of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), in Durban, South Africa. He was ushered into the frenzy of orientation week, took tours of the campus, chose his subjects and made friends. He was just like any other first–year student, buzzing with the future. Previn Naicker was 14 years old.
“For me personally, my age wasn’t such a big deal. I knew what it meant, I knew that it was an achievement, everyone around me knew it was an achievement. At that point, I just thought it was cool.”
Naicker isn’t just a varsity anomaly. Born in Durban, he attended Durwest Primary School. After winning a Maths Olympiad in grade six, at the age of 12, he was offered a scholarship to Star College, a private college with a focus on maths, science and technology. Although the youngest, he was one of nine students who entered an accelerated program which gave him a triple promotion from Grade Eight to Grade 12. Apart from some harmless jokes, he hardly noticed that he was the youngest.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-4194" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Previn-44-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
“You always get jokes coming your way but it was never too bad, just poking fun at the situation. Going into university, I was obviously younger and I still managed to make friends and get along with people. There were no challenges. The only challenge at university is just focusing and getting your work done, but that’s the same challenge for everybody,” he says.
He did his undergraduate degree at UKZN in biomedical science and his honors in medical biochemistry. He took a gap year in 2010 to ponder deep questions related to his field. Like any scientist, he’s methodical and his gap year was spent carefully analyzing all his options. He began studying protein structure and function, analyzing diseases and how they relate to protein structure function. He applied for his master’s which he then converted to a PhD at the age of 21. In 2013, he began working at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
“I still enjoyed myself being around friends. It’s an enjoyable time in life. I wasn’t really affected by what other people were doing and what I wasn’t doing.”
“I don’t know if people expect you to be a socially awkward person when you finish younger but that wasn’t the case,” he says.
By the age of 23, Naicker had earned his PhD degree in biochemistry from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, making him one of Africa’s youngest doctoral graduates, despite the delay of a gap year.
Naicker isn’t bursting with the tales of being a young prodigy; he’s unassuming and practical and broaches every aspect of life scientifically.
“It’s hard to have it all figured out, no matter where you are. There are people who have 15 years of experience in a field who want to change their path. Looking back, I’m happier than I was going through the academic process. In hindsight, things turned out better than I thought – I’ve learned so much.”
“I’m at a stage where I have as much experience in my field as my peers. It’s a competitive advantage. In five years, I’ll achieve what I want to and I’ll still have my youth. I’ll be more energetic – there are no challenges just advantages,” he says.
“You’ll never really know until you experience it. No matter how calculating you want to be, you have to experience. I always thought I was an old spirit in a young body.”
You can’t argue with that.

University  At 14 PhD At 23

You’ll find Cameroonian-born Fidelis Ebot Tabe in the heart of Cape Town, among colorful hats and caps, bargaining with customers. He’s tall and bursts into a smile whenever he speaks. At first glance he’s just another street trader among many, but this man has got a PhD in it.
“I didn’t invite my family to my graduation, after six years I couldn’t believe it, so I just told them when I got home,” he says.
His first degree in Cameroon was in history. He applied to professional schools to teach, but didn’t get in. Instead, he began trading food – dried prawns, dried fish and palm oil. After a friend told him about the prospects, he raised money and moved to South Africa.
“If I came down here, things would be better,” he says.
His South African story started 15 years ago in Mitchells Plain, a township in Cape Town located in the Cape Flats, selling caps, sunglasses and mobile accessories.
“Mitchells Plain is like a warzone, you must watch out all the time, it’s so rough” he says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3818" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/F1080027-683x1024-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
While trading on the streets, he did his honors and master’s in history through the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
“I was in the town center in Mitchells Plain in 2007, there was a process to upgrade the center. At the end of the process, we had to choose trading bays. The issue came up of people who were there before, what we call historic traders, they gave them the opportunity to choose sides and what size they needed. For people who had been there for seven or eight years, they just gave us small bays. When it came to me doing street trading, I started looking at what policies were there before and how things were done before,” he says.
He registered for his PhD and started an analysis of street trading in Cape Town. His research began in the CBD, a hub of activity with street traders along every street. He interviewed traders who mirrored his experience.
“They had similar histories to myself, there were a lot of foreign traders in the city center. When the question came as to why foreign traders dominate, the response was that South Africans were not interested in street trading at the time. Now, when South Africans come, there isn’t any space for them and they start to complain. The foreigners took the opportunity but they prefer the CBD which is safer than the townships where there are always clashes between locals and foreign nationals,” he says.
South Africa has suffered from violent xenophobic attacks. In May 2008, thousands of foreigners were forced to flee their homes in townships across the country when people attacked them in a wave of xenophobic violence. April saw an upsurge in xenophobic attacks throughout the country as armed gangs once again attacked immigrants. At least five people have died; shops looted and destroyed.
“Home is home. In Cameroon you sleep in peace, you don’t have crime or xenophobia there. You go to our market and you have Malians there and Nigerians there. We don’t envy them. We live happily with them, they are our friends. When they go home, you long for them to come back. But here it’s a completely different story,” he says.
He dreams of being back in Cameroon one day.
“But to go home, you need money. I’ve been here for 15 years and what do I have to show them back home?” he says.
Ebot Tabe wanted to challenge the stereotypes of the street trader.
“There’s this idea that street traders are poor. From my interviews with traders, they were not poor people. People actually left their jobs to become street traders because they believed that they would make more from street trading than from formal employment. And it’s true,” he says.
When it comes to street trading, a lot of people sell the same thing but Ebot Tabe explained that traders are a community that support each other.
“In Trafalgar Place in town, the flower sellers aren’t ideally located. There are just three stands in front of Adderley Street and the rest are at the back. They sell the same thing but you only see the people who stand in front. They began a rotation, so every day they would move one place down so that each person has the opportunity to sell in the front,” he says.
After six years of research, rewrites and clashes with his supervisor, he graduated in March this year.
“I’ve never found street trading frustrating until now. Why should I be sitting here? I hope to become a lecturer one day and not remain a street trader. I want to teach public and urban history so I can bring in my experiences,” he says.
For now, the doctor of street trading is selling in Mitchells Plain.

Tag: PhD

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Tech Wizard Who Wants The World To Learn Swahili

A New Voice For A New Africa

Step Forward The President With A Purpose

University At 14 PhD At 23

A PhD From The Streets